17Nov/094:32 PM

The Sports Retorter: ASU basketball– Non-conference opponent or fictitious college?

By Greg Esposito

Have you seen ASU’s non-conference basketball schedule?

If not, don’t feel bad, I hadn’t had a great chance to familiarize myself with the Sun Devil’s early season opponents either until this morning. I knew they started off with two “tuneup” games against Western Illinois and Texas State, both blowout victories, but it wasn’t until I heard a local radio show break it down that I realized just how weak the schedule truly was.

As the show’s hosts rattled off the names of the “institutions of higher learning” that ASU would be facing, I was left to scratch my head and grab an atlas to figure out where the heck these schools were. Even that didn’t help to locate USC Upstate (OK, who am I kidding? No one other than cartographers and 70-year olds have touched an atlas in the last 15 years. I Googled them).

The Sun Devils’ non-conference schedule is littered with such great state schools as Texas State, Delaware State and San Diego State, along with college powerhouses such as USC Upstate– which I found out is located in South Carolina and not somewhere north of Los Angeles– San Francisco and Arkansas-Pine Bluff.

As I read the school names and their subsequent mascots, it struck me, “these teams and their mascots sound more like campy fictitious colleges created by Hollywood writers than opponents a Pac-10 team should be playing”. I mean really, doesn’t Arkansas-Pine Bluff sound more like something you would do while playing poker in the woods or a school Andy Griffith and his son Opie would be proud to be alumni of, than an opponent of a major college basketball team (gee pop, I can’t wait to be a Arkansas-Pine Bluff Golden Lion like you when I grow up)?

With that in mind, I’ve come up with a little test for you. I’ll give you two mascots and you have to guess which is an ASU opponent and which is a Hollywood creation (if you are a big movie buff and this is too easy for you, try and name the movie the school is from, smarty pants).

We’ll start off easy, Dolphins versus Leathernecks. Hint: if you saw ASU’s first game, you should know this.

Time’s up! As much as a Dolphin sounds like the typical type of NCAA mascot, the Leathernecks of Western Illinois were the team the Devils opened their season against. Ironically enough, I would have gotten this one wrong if I hadn’t done the research. Although, if I had to guess it were a team ASU played, I would have thought the Leathernecks was the Texas State mascot (wasn’t he the main character in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre anyways?).

Ready for another? How about the Dons versus the Jaguars?

Although the Dons sounds like the mascot of the college Tony Soprano and Michael Corleone attended, it’s actually an opponent of the Sun Devils. The San Francisco Dons are ASU’s opponent this Friday in Tempe.

Here’s a matchup for the ages, Gauchos or Cougars?

Although the best answer would be “What are two things you’d see at Scottsdale Fashion Square on a Saturday afternoon?”, it’s actually a bit of a trick question. Herb Sendek’s crew plays teams known as both the Cougars and Gauchos, BYU and UC Santa Barbara. These two games would be much more entertaining if BYU’s logo looked like this and UC Santa Barbara’s looked like this. Wouldn’t you tune in to see that?

Here’s your final test, Bobcats, Horned Frogs, Bears, Hornets, Aztecs and Spartans versus Mongols, Chickadees, Mud Dogs, Timberwolves, Armadillos and Screaming Eagles.

Even though the first list is a mix of bad college joke fodder, Horned Frogs (insert chuckle here) and generic mascots, Bears and Bobcats, it is the remaining mascots of ASU’s non conference schedule. I’m sure you had to look over them a few times before you figured it out, although the Chickadees probably gave it away. No one but Van Wilder would be proud enough to call that his school’s mascot and he did it for seven years.

You’re probably wondering what the point of this Lee Corso-level of mascot madness is and the explanation is simple. If ASU wants to become an elite program, they have to play a non-conference schedule that includes teams that fans have heard of. I’m not sure that the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee members even know Arkansas-Pine Bluff and USC Upstate are real colleges.

ASU’s non-conference opponents combined for a 159-177 record last season, and four of the teams had at least 19 losses. That isn’t exactly the kind of schedule that helps prepare a team for a tough Pac-10 schedule, let alone help a team’s post season chances, that is unless an NIT championship is your ultimate goal (Yay! We’re number 66).

Herb Sendek has done a lot to bring ASU’s basketball program back to respectability. If he wants to be able to bring it from respectability to elite status, he’ll need some help from the ASU athletic department.

Then again, this is a school that was once known as the Tempe Normal School Bulldogs, so maybe a team’s name isn’t everything.

And Now For Something Completely Different

The Closing Bell

Former Phoenix Sun Raja Bell was traded yesterday from the Charlotte Bobcats to the Golden State Warriors.

Bell, in the final year of his contract, has been suffering from a partially torn ligament in his left wrist since the preseason. Instead of opting for surgery Bell has played through the pain for the last month as a member of the Bobcats.

Rather than add insult to the injury, Bell announced his intention to have season ending surgery just a day after being traded.

Can you blame him? Wouldn’t you rather miss the rest of the season than ever play for the mess Don Nelson has assembled in Oakland?